Wintel takes kicking from Apple, market share at all-time low

iPad whacks life out of PC founding fathers

Wintel's grip on the PC market has dropped to an all-time low due to the encroachment of Apple's seemingly unbeatable iPad.

Figures from industry box-counter Canalys show 73 per cent of the 108.7 million PCs - desktops, notebooks, netbooks and pads - sold worldwide in Q2 were running on Microsoft's OS and had Intel inside.

In the same period a year ago, the number of x86 machines containing Microsoft, Intel and AMD accounted for nearly 82 per cent of all PCs.

"The whole time that tablet sales are growing, Microsoft and Intel's market share is moving in the opposite direction because they don't have a foothold in that market," Tim Coulling, analyst at Canalys told The Channel.

The market watcher reckons Windows PC shipments continue to disappoint, as Ultrabooks have yet to hit the price points that could lure more shoppers to go for thin and light.

Punters may not be currently lapping up costly Ultrabooks or cheap notebooks but they still have a taste for fondleslabs, specifically those with an Apple shaped logo.

It was this demand for tablets that enabled Apple to put clear water between itself and the chasing pack of PC rivals on the global stage in the quarter.

The post-Jobsian empire retook the PC market crown after reporting unit sales growth of 59.6 per cent in a worldwide sector that grew 11.7 per cent.

Just slipping behind Apple, HP struggled to make headway in terms of shipment growth as unit sales slipped 11.3 per cent.

Canalys reckons HP's "sensible cost-saving decision" to marry its PC and printer divisions impacted numbers as it was focused on internal realignment.

Despite this, Canalys research indicates resellers are largely in favour of the deal when the biz stabilises and momentum builds.

Only Lenovo in third – the fastest growing of all the traditional PC players – came closest to matching Apple's unit growth, with sales up 27 per cent.

Fourth placed Acer is clearly in recovery mode and grew 4.3 per cent while Dell was down 10.9 per cent.

Total tablet shipments worldwide grew 75 per cent to 24 million units, or 22 per cent of all computers shipped in the three months. Apple grew 84 per cent to bag more than 70 per cent (17m units) market share for tablets.

"The [tablet] market is going well, especially if you are Apple," Coulling said.

Other vendors had a better showing in fondleslabs, with second-placed Samsung shipping 1.9 million units in Q2, up 121 per cent on a year ago, and third-placed Asus pushing out 900,000 tablets, up 129 per cent. ®